The
report included research on 48 countries conducted by more than 300
scientists using 700 weather stations. According to the report, the
year's 2000 to 2009 were warmer than the 1990's, and the 1990's were
warmer than the 1980's. In addition, each consecutive year from 2000
to 2009 was hotter than the year before.

Since
the 1960's, there has been an average surface air temperature rise of
0.6 degrees. While this may seem small, the scientists
noticed warming
climate effects in the increased sea level and humidity,
declining glaciers, snow and sea ice and increased lower atmospheric
and land temperatures. Signs of warming has also been found as far as
two kilometers down below surface in the oceans, since, according to
the report, 90 percent of warming has been absorbed by the Earth's
oceans.

"Don't
be fooled by anyone telling you that global warming is caused by the
urban heat island effect or problems with thermometers - the
satellite data don't suffer from these issues," said Neville
Nicholls, president of the Australian Meteorological and
Oceanographic Society. Nicholls also noted that since the satellite
record began in 1979, the warming trend has been "identical"
for thermometer and satellite data.

Australia,
in particular, was hit by three noteworthy heat waves in 2009. These
occurred in the months of January, August and November. January's
heat wave claimed
hundreds of lives due to the heat and brushfires. August's
broke heat records, and November's caused the city of Adelaide to
witness eight consecutive days above 35 degrees.

While
warming continues to show its presence, cold spells are still
expected to arise occasionally, but not often, according to the
report.

"The
mid-Atlantic coast of the U.S. was extremely cold and snowy,"
the report stated. "At the same time, other regions were
unusually warm and the globe as a whole had one of the warmest
winters on record."

While
this new report from the NOAA represents their firm
stand on the side of global warming,not
all scientists are pro warming. According to a report from
the Canada Free Press, 31,486 Americans with science degrees (9,029
PhD, 7,157 MS, 2,586 MD and DVM and 12,714 BS or equivalent) have
"signed on" with the Global Warming Petition Project, which
sends the message that "the human-caused global warming
hypothesis is without scientific validity."

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quote: If it's not caused by human activity, then there is very little chance that we have any mechanism to combat it.

Nonsense.

We're quite aware of many causes contributing to global warming, greenhouse gases being the one most flaunted in the media but certainly not the only one. Most of these causes fall well within the realm of possibility when it comes to us, as a race, to combat them.

Playing the blaming game is just being ignorant of what should be done, or even worse - being in denial about it.

quote: Tell me, what are you going to do when a Volcano erupts and temporarily emits 100X the current level of CO2? Anyway to stop that?

Please refrain from the fearmongering, it kills your argument dead in its tracks.

Your line of argumentation is based solely on fear, fear that you'll have to give up some conveniences to allow for a sustainable habitat. The natural, and all too common, response to that have traditionally been denying that we can do anything about it or shift the solution into some distant future and going about our business as usual - hoping that we'll be long gone before we have to worry about the long term effects.

That was true in the 50s, when the effects of human industry were first starting to make an impact and the predictions about global climate changes which we're now seeing were first made.

Today that's no longer an option. The climate has changed, is changing and it's well within our power to change that.

Yes, it'll cost a lot of money, time and work on both a global, national and personal level but if you're looking for a development that we can't avoid then that is it. Not the climate change itself.

In the end the natural extension of your argument is nihilism, or at the very least fatalistic nonsense that has no bearing on the existence of human society in the form it takes today.

Strictly speaking this planet could be struck by the expanding outer rim of another universe at any time and without warning, annihilating us in an instant. That hasn't stopped me from doing my work, paying my bills or recycling all my trash.

If you want to go out in a blaze of glory rather than submit to doing your part in what's necessary to maintain a decent habitat for both ourselves and many other species on this planet then I'm certainly not going to hold you back, I'm just going to ask you to refrain from imposing your excuses on the rest of us.